Hello @sajidjavid @ukhomeoffice former Home Office person here, with asylum, immigration and culture change experience. Here are seven things I’d urge you to do which will improve the system. 1/8
Make it your priority to simply law, rules and process. The complexity causes needless mistakes, delays and costs. You can’t give, or get, decent service in this environment. The challenge is – it’s not sexy & always gets pushed down the list 2/8
Get out to ports, enforcement offices, casework hubs, detention centres. You’ll feel the emotional distance from Whitehall & Westminster. Talk to decision takers, managers, policy folk and give equal weight to their views. Get the organisation talking around the conflicts 3/8
Invite in the full range of stakeholders, above all representatives and charities who know the customer experience deeply. And of course the customers themselves. Bring stakeholders and staff together to talk, not in a formal committee but in settings where trust can grow 4/8
Look critically at the management structure. You have two permanent secretaries co-ordinating the system, but is there a gap for an overall operational head focused on helping frontline staff through change & improving cross-system communication? 5/8
You may get advice to run a “change programme” with Boards, committees, targets, dashboards and toolkits. Don’t take this advice. Agile is what you want – frontline staff and end users hacking trough the issues and testing solutions at each stage. @CSHRgovuk will help 6/8
Stop the system from trying to do everything at once. Stick with this decision when it gets attacked (it will be). 7/8
Lastly, please, please don’t call the Home Office “a great department of state”. That makes it sound like someone’s Grandad. It’s a renewed, youthful Home Office you need now. Good luck 8/8
